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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Arwon |
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Arwon Bazu                  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Crayola No. Freedom of Speech is not an absolute. No right is an absolute, because rights clash with one another and you can't maximise them all simulteneously. For example, you're not allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded room because that impinges other people's rights to safety and so forth. Hate speech is often punished in many places because it violates the right of certain communities to live free of fear. Even as an adult, swearing at people aggressively, in certain situations, can potentially get you in trouble for anything ranging from threatening/intimidating someone to disturbing the peace. After all, even as an adult, it's not your right to escape the consequences of your behaviour when it impacts on other people. It's not enough to say "it impinges on freedom of speech", that isn't an argument in itself. Many things impinge freedom of speech. You have to demonstrate why it's excessive, and frankly, schools punishing students in fairly minimal ways (ever get the cane, for example? they do in Singapore) for disrespecting teachers does not constitute any meaningful restriction of freedom of speech. Firstly, minors in schools are, simply, not entitled to the full gamut of rights within the grounds of that school. This is because they also do not have the full range of responsibilities. Societies accept that children must be limited in the rights they enjoy because they are not ready to have them all. We as a society accept the principle of limiting minors in ways that are unacceptable when applied to adults (see also: alcohol laws, sex laws, work laws, etc). Kids aren't treated like adults. Moreover, you are NOT being fucking persecuted. I actually find it offensive that you would whinge and complain that schools exercising an appropriate level off basic discipline can be equated to the ACTUAL deprivations of basic freedoms that occur all over the world, even in your own country with its long tradition of freedom and democratic values. There are people in jail for exp |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Even creepier than the rest of this thread is its title.
Yeesh. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by emcee You know, I don't know what those things are either. This is, I assume, because I haven't done mathematics since 10th grade? It's funny, I wouldn't have picked mathematics as the big failing of schools in the US--while I was over there the maths and science teachings seemed pretty bang-on compared to my experiences in Australia, probably even a little better (particularly with regard to science). The real problems seemed to be in English and the social sciences, where the English and History classes I took were quite literally years behind our standards. At any rate, I wouldn't get too upset, guys. 19th place still means you're beating like 180 countries? |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Oh, THAT SS.
I'm with you now. I assumed it was some obscure scientician acronym. |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I think everyone's confusing "the insurgents" for "one leader of one Suinni group". Still, it'll be interesting to see what happens... remember though, negotiation is just talking, laying your objectives and goals on the table, it doesn't mean anything productive happens if demands from the two sides are irreconcilable. | |||
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I think, Koryo, you've got a lot of things wrong. You're essentially arguing a very idealistic and America-centric "we should do something" line derived from a very blinkered and simplistic view of Cold War politics.
Firstly. Recognition of dictators as legitimate leaders is, essentially, a matter of realism. They're the dudes with the guns, they're the ones with the flags, they're the ones you talk to. It's a regrettable but necessary feature of a Westphalian political system with national sovereignty. It's lovely to wish every country's leader was the head of a western liberal democratic republic but that simply isn't the case and won't be in the forseeable future. Moreover... US support for despots, hypocrisy, US blind eye to other odious regimes like Burma and Uzbekistan, blah blah blah you know the drill. Secondly, you've a massive overestimation of what North Korea is actually capable of:
No-one knows precisely what they have, but they're still dwarfed and outgunned by the US and well aware that the use of nukes would get them vapourised. They're cornered and impoverished. Remember, they managed to set of a very small nuke, and they've got some missiles they haven't successfully tested, but even so, this doesn't fundamentally change the situation from previously. We couldn't just "drive tanks across the demilitarized zone" even before they went nuclear because of the consequences. North Korea has a million-man army, America has 30 000 troops on the peninsula and is massively overstretched elsewhere. Very few other countries would get involved, if any. Moreover, NK already has enough conventional ordinance trained on Seoul to flatten it in a matter of hours. So related to this, the third mistake is you've massively overestimated the US's capacity to act in this situation. As well as the "overstretched" thing, there's the fact that the US simply isn't omnipotent and is still constrained in various ways. I know it's galling, but there's some stuff you just don't have much control over. There's a regional power and security dynamic that is fairly independent of the US... these are old, independent countries with their own agendas that often diverge from American wishes. At most, the US is an insurance policy, and often seen as a liability (see also, South Korean ambivalence about the American alliance). They also basically have a fairly different way of thinking about international relations. Fourth, forced unification would be a disaster. South Korea does not want to pay for it because it is too expensive and uncertain. Moreover, North Korea is in too bad a condition for them to absorb the north easily. This isn't East and West Germany, and even they had massive problems with a much better set of initial conditions. Fifth, you're misreading China's attitude. China does not want an assertive or nuclear-armed North Korea. China doesn't need the North. The North is a liability to them. They'll learn to live with it having nukes because they're an ally and they prefer stability over anything else, but they don't like it because it makes things more dangerous, it encourages Japan to go nuclear which would mean instant arms race and lead to massive tensions between Japan and China, and Japan and South Korea. I can think of few worse situations than that given their difficult relations with each other. Nobody in the region wants an assertive, increasingly nationalist, nuclear-armed Japan and that's one of the reasons China is so angry about its ally going nuclear. Your gung-ho statement "if I was Japanese or South Korean, I know I’d be demanding that my government go nuclear" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of the region. There's a reason neither country is talking seriously about doing so. Sixth. The refugee issue is regrettable but a hardly unique thing in our international system. Hell, even Australia's repatriated refugees knowing they're likely to be persecuted or executed. Frankly, the refugee situation is, and has to be, a very minor consideration here... moral outrage isn't a great basis for foreign policy. Seventh. The idea of a propaganda campaign. Probably already happens, but at any rate, won't work. You're not going to sow internal dissent and create a democracy "gospel" there. Meaningless gesture. Here you just fly off into wild fantasy. Maybe the regime will fall unexpectedly, but it wont be because of such idealistic external influences. Eighth, you're basically projecting America's interests onto the region and assuming everyone wants what America wants. You're assuming South Korea wants unification. You're assuming the people of SK and Japan should want to go nuclear. You think fixing NK means giving them western-style democracy. You think regional stability is less important than getting rid of a bad nasty gang man. And so on. Finally, let's address a couple of historical errors. First:
It's equally valid to say that the only reason South Korea exists as a separate country from the North is because the USA occupied the territory and put a string of military dictators in charge. Takes two to tango, and Korea was a victim of cold war politics on both sides, this "good and evil" dynamic never existed. Remember it took until the 80s for South Korea to become democratic, and it did so with no help from the United States.
No, that's wrong. The Berlin airlift went into West Berlin, an FDR enclave that was completely isolated when the DDR closed off road access to it. Crisis ensued, it was later solved when the East agreed to allow road access again. I think, from the overall tone of your post, the analogies you draw, and the misrepresentations of history you put forward, you're basically caught up in the American Cold War mythology of the US democracy-spreading good guys and the poor, starving Eastern Bloc yearning to breathe free. "US good, commies evil". The truth on the ground was a lot more subtle and complicated than that, and the same is true of this situation. Really, as I have already said, moral outrage isn't that useful a method for determining foreign policy. Acting on your ideas and suggestions would be bumbling into a region you doesn't understand very well, pissing all over the interests of its allies with barely any attention to what they want or what's good for them, it would be inflaming tensions, and all for some idealistic, hopelessly naive and unrealistic goal. Idealism is nice, but it must be tempered by pragmatism. The only thing we can really do is wait and see how things develop. There are no good options, but idealistic and gung-ho "we have to do something" thinking will result in some of the worst options. (edited by Arwon on 10-17-06 04:48 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by MathOnNapkins Some people need a parole officer to keep them in line but that doesn't mean I do. If the only reason you're behaving yourself is the big reward/punishment system in the sky, then something is seriously wrong. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| This is what they call a false dichotomy. Suicide and martyrdom are different categories of things that sometimes overlap but don't correlate 100%. Suicide is an action with no inherent meaning except that applied to it, martyrdom is an example of an applied meaning in the minds of other people. Suicide is objective, martyrdom is subjective.
Kudos on a very novel question, Topic Starter... we get so used to arguing the same things over and over again, a genuinely new thought and a new question to consider is quite refreshing. (edited by Arwon on 10-17-06 10:03 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Is what Aiya just said really not obvious to some people? | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Don't you think that's depressing though? all this false hope? All these people whose happiness and sanity hinges on what might well be a delusion? | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Oh for fucks' sake man, pointing out the realities of the international political system and arguing for a little bit of basic realism and pragmatism does not an anti-American make.
I'm basically arguing that the US is another actor in the international system without any special aura or sanctity, that its capacity to get what it wants is constrained by other actors in a given situation, and that pushing too hard will create dire regional consequences and a security dilemma situation that will escalate an already dangerous situation. Moreover, I'm arguing that the reason you've got this view is that you've got exhibited a skewed view of international politics based on your particular perceptions of the Cold War and America's moral superiority. The "goodies vs baddies" view might play well domestically but project it abroad and it breaks down rapidly even among allies. I'm not saying you're talking solely about US self-interest... you're actually doing the opposite, and exhibiting the very American (also French, oddly) habit of universalising your own concerns and beliefs and priorities onto everyone else. That's not to say that people don't want freedom and blah blah blah, just that there's a recognition of what is and isn't possible and desirable. Having a war fought for your freedom and safety actually doesn't feel all that good, after all. At any rate, go read some Morgenthau, learn the basic tenets of political realism (the dominant theory in international relations, certainly amongst statesmen) and get back to me. For what it's worth, and I don't know whether you realise this already, but in terms of international relations theory you're arguing a textbook neo-conservative case. Unfortunately though, the whole "democratise the world" project and the whole idea of using military force to impose regime change on other countries based on idealism, is pretty badly discredited. At any rate: I have said NOTHING about anti-americanism, I have said NOTHING about evil empires or imperialism, and I have said NOTHING which isn't said by major American experts on international relations (and I do study this shit, I kind of have an idea of what I'm talking about). Hell, a lot of conservatives fucking agree with me, from a US self-interest perspective, that war with the North really needs to be avoided and that there's a limit to how hard we should push given the stakes. This isn't an "evil America" debate... this is about the security situation on the Korean peninsula and how fucking depressingly difficult it is and how an earnest desire to fix everything with force and strength isn't really the best idea. It is ridiculous for you to insinuate that because I'm pointing out that solely morality-based foreign policy is unworkable, I am somehow supporting North Korea. Ditch the uppity histrionics. I freely acknowledge that North Korea is probably the world's worst regime at the moment. I mean, there's a few other shit-holes in a bigger mess throughout Central Asia and Africa, but as far as well-organised regimes go, NK's basically a 1984 funpark with extra starvation and absent things like Pol Pot's Cambodia there ain't much worse around... I'm granting that. You're utterly misinterpreting me and misunderstanding me if you think I'm saying North Korea isn't awful. It's a terrible thing that they have nukes now, but we all knew it was coming and the sad fact is there's no actual way of stopping them. But. Conflict with North Korea is the least desirable outcome and should be avoided at all costs. It would kill many many people, create disastrous regional fallout, and it's all well and good to be so gung-ho about the potential for war from the other side of the world sitting in an untouchable superpower.... but well, you don't have to live with the consequences. Even assuming the best of intentions, and even assuming the political will, war with humanitarian motives is still notoriously tricky (we haven't really got a shining example at all, yet) and even in the best circumstances and can still fuck things up majorly. Freedom and democracy are nice and all, but starting wars is not a good idea either... and excessive aggressiveness is making war more likely. You don't have a monopoly on the moral high ground when the consequences of an excessively aggressive response are so potentially damaging. Massive destruction in South Korea, millions of refugees, the potential for a wider conflagration... this stuff isn't to be taken lightly. I'm no pacifist and I'm no anti-American. Fuck, man, I lived there for two years and I despise the excessive knee-jerk anti-Americanism in this country (though I'd point out that conservatives do it too, before you start thinking anti-Americanism is a lefty thing). It's crude and simplistic for you to accuse me of such things, and invoking Nazis and appeasement and so forth is simply insulting. I, for example, think military intervention in Zimbabwe is probably a good idea if it's well planned (huge "if" as always), but in the end you need to look at things with a cold, hard cost-benefit analysis before you decide to intervene based on morality. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible. Helping East Timor was possible in 1999, helping Tibet is not. Why? They're comparable situations of a large occupying neighbour, but basic realities of the international security system make them different. A sense of consequences, a sense that a well-meaning policy can create dire problems, a sense of fucking caution, is necessary. The claim that North Korea is likely to use nuclear weapons is wrong. For what it's worth, they've pledged a no first strike policy, but more importantly, they're still pretty much a rational actor (within the context of their fucked up little paranoid world) and aren't going to randomly attack unprovoked. It's a LEAVE US ALONE policy they're pursuing--a logical pursuit of security for the regime from where they're sitting (remember, people spent 50 years worrying about an unprovoked Soviet attack and it was never even remotely likely). Given their paranoia, it's wise not to push them any further than necessary. And your conviction that a nuclear attack wouldn't be responded to is seriously off base. The US would respond to an unprovoked act of nuclear aggression by the DPRK with nukes, and assuming they hadn't done too much to inflame the situation that led to it, I don't think anyone would really blame them too much for responding in kind... the doctrine of response to nuclear attack is well-known. Of course, they'd probably expect the US to front for a lot of the reconstruction (assuming China didn't march in and assume direct control) but then, they'd probably be right to expect this. The most likely scenario that would actually see North Korea to use its nukes is during the collapse of the regime or, hell, its entire society... or more likely, as a result of rapidly escalating tensions. Tensions that're most likely to occur if outside powers push too hard a line (that includes China, actually). It's a classic security dilemma scenario--pursuing your own security deprives others of security, and that's in play on both sides here. This is why China is angry but cautious and South Korea is shitting themselves and Japan has categorically ruled out nukes. North Korea has ramped up the tension and insecurity, and everyone's afraid other actors, obviously the US being one but China's still a wildcard, are going to ramp it up further. The North East Asian security situation is one of the most complicated and difficult situations in international relations. There's historical animosities, a rapidly rising China, a resurgent and nationalist Japan, the Taiwan question, very little in the way of regional cooperation to short-circuit tensions (unlike in South East Asia), and there's an outside hegemon projecting its own interests onto this already precarious region. Don't you think there's a reason that NO-ONE with any expertise or power is advocating invasion or anything beyond harsh sanctions? It's because it would be disastrous for all concerned. They recognise that pushing too hard is likely to reduce security, and in a nuclear world, security is paramount. ------------
No, you're still misinterpreting this. China is North Korea's only semi-friend but they're not happy. They don't want a petulant, paranoid, nuclear North Korea, and they'd really like nothing more than for it to be quiet. North Korea is a liability, albeit a necessary one in China's eyes. It sucks up aid (and steals the Chinese trains it comes in on, for gods sake) and threatens to create a huge security headache for China when all they want is peace, stability, economic growth and to avoid a confrontation with the USA. China has had harsh words for North Korea after all of this, after all. The whole situation threatens to further poison difficult relations with Japan, something which is bad for China because anti-Japanese nationalism in China has a tendency (because it comes from the new middle class, bulwarks of support for the government) to back the Chinese government into acting tougher than they'd like towards Japan... further exacerbating things. North Korea and China are semi-friends, but China is as likely to cut the North adrift or leave them to their own devices if tension increases as it is to back them. This serious question mark over how close the relationship actually is, is one of the few aspects of the situation that actually, thankfully, reduces the potential for a huge disaster. Moreover, you advocated splitting China from North Korea to isolate them. This is the wrong strategy. China already knows the cost of backing NK in terms of confronting the USA, they don't need to be told. China's influence over NK and its desire for things to just be quiet is a very useful thing, and a policy that jeopardises that is dangerous (and destabilising, since no-one wants a collapsed North Korea). ------------ Now, getting back to this collapse and reconstruction issue. Firstly, do you actually recognise that the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, while it did bring political freedom and end the Cold War, has had massive drawbacks, declines in standard of living for millions of people, lower life expectancy, all manner of social problems? How much do you actually know about the postcommunist world? I'm not saying it was a bad thing, because clearly it wasn't even if a lot of East Europeans and Russians yearn for the old days, but I'm saying its complexities and paradoxes and ambiguities must be recognised. The triumphalist cheerleader view basically only survives in sections of the West, with the benefit of distance and, basically, ignorance. And therefore, projecting a rose-tinted view of the collapse of Communism onto other situations isn't a great idea. If nothing else, just remember Yugoslavia was also a consequence of the collapse. Now, Germany. East Germany was utterly de-industrialised, reunification has cost Germany about €1.5 trillion dollars. And there was a lot of things working for Germany that won't for Korea: -West Germany was larger than East Germany with 3 times the population. In the Koreas, the populations are much closer. -West Germany's economy was stronger and larger than South Korea's and better able to foot the massive bill even given the problems it caused -East Germany was much stronger than North Korea and therefore the relative gap between the two countries was much closer than in the Koreas. The DDR was, in Eastern Bloc terms, an economic powehouse, and much more developed than North Korea is. Absorbing it was therefore easier than it would be for Korea. -North Korea actually is in such a parlous state that it is likely to collapse in ruination in a way that generates millions of refugees. This never occurred with the shitily run but still essentially functional East German republic. -Germany had the whole European Union behind it cheerleading unification, the international context was extremely amenable to reunification as a tool to cement Germany into Europe. Without the enthusiastic acceptance of people like Mitterand, Gorbachev and Thatcher, the outcome may have been very different. The Korean context is much more difficult... China does not what a capitalist, democratic, united Korea on its doorstep and would not cooperate in any way. The international context is much more fraught in the case of Korea. Korea, by and large, doesn't really want unification. They know they'd be left holding the basket. At most, if North Korea collapsed tomorrow, South Korea would be grudingly talking about a phased integration which would be long, expensive, debilitating and painful for both parties. The best scenario is waiting and observing, hoping for a gradual opening from the next leader, along the lines of other gradually economically reforming communist countries like China, Vietnam and, sort of, Cuba (having learned the lessons of rapid collapse and "shock therapy" it's obvious that gradual change is best). The question of sanctions is very difficult... they may well be very effective and crash the regime into chaos, they may do nothing, they may well simply provoke further tension. It's not a cut and dry case... I'd favour sanctions solely because it keeps up the message that nuclear proliferation has consequences for really undesirable states, but I at least recognise the multiple ways they can go badly wrong. Oh, and this:
Naw. Firstly, there was a whole coalition of counties (my great uncle was actually one of the Australians killed) under a UN banner, and the US copped only about a 20th of the overall fatalities on the allied side. The point isn't just pure military strength, though, it's stuff like reconstruction support (it'd be incredibly expensive to do anything other than just topple the government and leave them to their own devices) and also basic issues of moral credibility. Unilateralism has its drawbacks. If the US is seen to have unnecessarily provoked a war on the Korean peninsula through excessive aggressiveness, (and if this then goes nulcear), the US would cop a large share of the blame for turning a difficult situation disastrous even though it knew the risks and the costs of provoking North Korea. It would stand very isolated if it was seen to have provoked the crazy regime. It'd probably be a bigger disaster for American prestige and soft-power than the whole Iraq debacle has been. And this is even though the North Korean regime is so damn odious. That, too, is part of the equation here. (edited by Arwon on 10-18-06 09:46 AM) (edited by Arwon on 10-18-06 10:32 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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No, they're generalized, vague, misused, and inaccurate terms in the hands of myopic American pundits. FWIW I am not a liberal inthat sense. I'm a social democrat, which is a creature as rare as a unicorn in American politics. At any rate I'm not using "conservative" in a generalised sense here, I'm ascribing a fairly specific attitude towards international relations to you. Your views on international relations are text-book neoconservatism, in the academic sense. This is international relations 101 stuff. Neo-conservatism is characterised by things like aggressive support for democracies and nation-building, great faith in the ability of America to export democracy and build democracies after conflicts, a strong belief in the democratic peace theory, disagreement with nativism and isolationism, rejection of things like détente and realpolitik, and, historically, support for rollback over containment, accommodation, arms control, and so forth. In some ways it's sort of a fun-house mirror version of the Trotskyist theories of spreading revolution... they share the idea that democracy and liberal capitalism are euphimisms for each other, they both have faith that one can create a new governmental and social system in ostensibly "backward" societies that haven't naturally developed towards them. It's an interesting flip of the old revolutionary left's ideas. They usually believe Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union and that the best comparison for any given humanitarian intervention and "nation building" project is Germany and Japan post-WW2. They're likely to view China as a scary looming threat and want harsh policies towards it to contain it. You are, in international relations terms, a neo-conservative. I don't know where I fit... probably some variety of constructivism, but that's a subject for another day. My objections to ideology-driven (and the project of exporting the capitalist liberal-democratic system is certainly an ideology-driven foreign policy) nation-building projects are rooted in the fact that they are very hard, and usually don't work for a number of reasons. Firstly, I don't believe it's possible to really steer, with any degree of certainty, the directions of other countries and the international system, even for a country as powerful and hegemonic as the United States. Remember the Shah and all that. And the ability to predict and accurately steer one of the essential requirements for such a normative and ambitious foreign policy agenda to succeeed. Such things are, at best, an inexact science, something that has been illustrated repeatedly from Haiti to East Timor and was illustrated with particularly great force in Iraq. I'm, personally, convinced that the prime motivation for intervention in Iraq was neoconservative idealism and faith in the democratisation project (not OIL OMG or whatever). The problem was, this faith in democratisation blinded people to certain realities--witness the belief that people would continue to be grateful for a long time and the belief that democracy would be a rapid and easy process. The disbanding of the Ba'ath Party and the civil service and the army, for example, was textbook neo-conservative policy based on the denazification analogy. And it's probably been the single biggest disaster in terms of crippling reconstruction efforts and creating a powerful insurgency. This is just one example... some of the follies and incompetence in attempting to create liberal capitalism out of nothing also attest to the way the difficulties of nation-building have been, and continue to be, massively underestimated. These people have noble desires but then, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Second, there's massive questions over the ability of countries, ie the United States, to commit sufficient attention, time, and resources to achieve a successful nation-building even if it's possible. Given the fickle nature of electorates in general, its inward-looking electorate in particular, its recent history of absolutely mediocre leaders, the strong isolationist bent of a lot of Americans, doubts over the strength of America's economy or its ability to control its budget, and so forth... it's doubtful that in a reconstruction situation as dire and desperate as a North Korean project would be, that the US would have the will to see things through effectively. And that's even assuming it was done with competence and understanding and pragmatism in a way Iraq has not been. And for this reason alone, I don't think a reconstruction opportunity is necessarily something to look forward to just because it means no more Kim Jong Il. Certainly the South Koreans and others aren't looking forward to it... This, again, smacks of the unwillingness to see complexity and difficulty in such things, recognising that the wholesale transformation of entire societies, from without, is bloody difficult even at the best of times. If you're not even going to even recognise that millions of Eastern Europeans have legitimate grievances and feel ambivalence with their new systems, (instead falling back on simplistic rhetoric like "Have you ever lived under a communist government?"), if you cant see such ambiguities and problems with the idea of spreading democracy and freedom and markets and all that, how can you be expected to fix North Korea, a country far more scarred and broken than the old Eastern Bloc, effectively? I'll grant that you probably don't really understand much about what many East European countries are like, it's not something that gets taught in American schools (are you aware that the Communist Parties of most countries have since held power again, for example?). But then... that's kind of the point--the "export democracy" project is a little bit naive. The point isn't that the fall of Communism was a bad thing per se, because obviously very few would want it all back, it's that it was abysmally managed (a big issue was shonky neoliberal Western economic advice leading to "shock therapy" and wholesale deindustrialisation and mass-unemployment) and that in many places people legitimately miss aspects of the old system such as job security, pensions and health care... and that many quality-of-life indicators have actually declined in a lot of places. Post-communism is a multifaceted issue... not to be approached in triumphalist "the evil empire has fallen!" terms. It's not a desirable blueprint for future societal remodellings, it's a "what not to do" lesson on the virtues of gradual change. Third, I don't think it's valid to view regimes as threats based entirely on their ideological stances. Your statement that "China has visions of a world wide Chinese hegemony in the future" and "China would be happy if North Korea attacked South Korea or Japan" is key here. You keep talking about China wanting war and salivating to destroy Japan and so forth, which strikes me as unfair. Sure, they've certainly got designs on areas they consider part of their historic nation, rightly or wrongly (and there's questions as to whether this includes, say, North Korea as part of the historic Korgoyo kingdom) but that's hardly a global imperialist project. For what it's worth, Chinese strategic thinking as defined by Chinese strategists is the China's Peaceful Rise doctrine... mistrust it if you will, but be aware that you're simply doing the mirror of what other people do when they mistrust America's more idealistic stated foreign-policy goals. I believe that power interests are a far bigger factor in security than ideology and I don't buy the Democratic Peace Theory. For example, it's probable that the Cold War would have happened even if Russia was still a Tsarist monarchy or had stabilised under Karensky as a more Social Democratic or even Liberal state rather than Bolshevik/Communist one, because post WW2, the US and Russia would still have been confronting each other as dual hegemons over a power vacuum in Europe, and would still have been compelled into a security dilemma together no matter what their political systems. Granted it's also possible to argue that the paranoid personality of Stalin was the prime cause of the Cold War, but I favour the structural explaination. The character and rhetoric of the confrontation would have been different with different governments, but confrontation still would have occurred in some form. So where we're essentially differing here is you keenly anticipate the chance to reconstruct North Korea along liberal democratic and capitalist lines and think it would work well, whereas I, simply, don't given the past history of such projects. I'd love it if it were possible to remake the international order in a more appealing image and to shape countries into modern secular social- or liberal-democratic republics, but there's simply no evidence that the democracy-export project is possible or that ideologically driven humanitarian interventions and nation-building projects work very wellat all. Actually now that I think about it, there's not much evidence nation-building and reconstructions work period, which is depressing... even East Timor, with all the right theoretical preconditions, is turning into a basket-case. We also differ in that you want to push them very hard in order to actively weaken North Korea and want to seek regime change--that's rollback, not containment. In contrast, I think seeking regime change rather than maintaince of the status quo is not in the region's security interests and that the preconditions necessary to create an opportunity for regime change (war or the collapse of the whole North Korean state) aren't desirable ideas for any of the other players. Regime change means either war or the collapse of North Korea or both. Call it "not caring about the North Korean people" if you will, but emotional blackmail isn't effective argumentation and at any rate I can equally accuse you of not caring about the Japanese, South Korean or Chinese people by being so cavalier about regime change. Oh and I swear a lot, it's part of my style. No big deal. Attribute it all to my rough and crude Australian ways or something. Also, GODWIN. (edited by Arwon on 10-19-06 03:04 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Silvershield OOOOOH NO HE DIDN'T. I'm a convinced atheist. Watch this: We're basically comically inconsequential little specks on a tiny blue-green orb in an incomprehensibly huge and indifferent universe. We managed to eke out a brief existance. But only in a narrow band of temperatures, within a few-miles of altitude and thus air pressure, within a specific mixture of gasses, on one planet, which will one day be subsumed in the nuclear fire of a dying star. We are alone and isolated. We can't even travel to other little orbs and make friends because the very LAWS OF PHYSICS and our own limited life-spans make it impossible. This universe is not designed for us. We matter not a jot, and it is the height of hubris to invent some magical man in the sky who says we're special enough to preserve. Beyond not mattering, we're actually scum. Within this preposterously tiny environment we manage to survive in, we still can't make things work. Within these limited square-kilometres of oxygen and nitrogen (we can't even survive more than a few dozen metres under water), we kill each other over nothing, we treat each other with callous indifference, we delude ourselves into thinking we are smart and in control. We go mad with isolation and loneliness, grasping in the dark for a brief respite and maybe the chance to spawn and perpetuate the species. We're destroying our enviromment--shitting where we eat--and we're too stupid to save ourselves. And STILL we insist that a magical man in the sky has some special reward for us in spite of our manifest idiocies and destructive tendencies. Bollocks to that. Seriously, have you never heard of existentialism or post-modernism? (edited by Arwon on 10-19-06 03:14 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Well to be fair there are certainly atheistic doctrines that hold up man to be perfectable or te centre of everything or both. I just don't think anyone's really a positivist or a marxist any more. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| When you have multiple religions claiming they're the one true faith and the only way to be saved, Pascal's Wager becomes far less simple--what if the Hindus are right?
Moreover, if anyone's believing in God just to fucking hedge their bets... well that's a bit cynical and not real faith and not likely to be rewarded now, is it? The Christian who falls back on Pascal's Wager is essentially saying they only believe in God out of fear and/or self-interest and/or opportunism. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Well, apparently Ashfield in Sydney's semi-west, where I've spent a bit of time at various points, is notorious for rape attacks and break-ins in recent years... it never really seemed that bad to me though. (edited by Arwon on 10-19-06 09:53 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I think it's a huge stretch, Silvershield, to describe depressing absurdist or nihilist philosophies that essentially say life has no meaning and we are totally insignificant, as somehow an arrogant or egotistical philosophy. Especially when compared to the essential self-centredness of any theistic doctrine that holds that man has essential value and special sanctity. (edited by Arwon on 10-19-06 09:33 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Silvershield Uh, no. That's nonsense. Being aware of our essential meaninglessness, and using the scale and complexity of the universe and the limitations of the laws of physics to illustrate this point, does not constitute worship. Let's get this clear. The universe basically, sucks. It's cruel, transitory, inefficient, doomed, and doesn't much want us here (frankly, if it has a creator, that motherfucker has a LOT to answer for). Moreover, is the universe knowable? Of course not, because of our limited perceptions. 3 dimensions, 70 years, a limited spectrum of light and sound frequencies, some tactile sensations, a brain constrained by these realities. Fuck, we can't even know ourselves let alone the totality of existence. You're projecting the idea that, because some people need to find higher meaning and purpose and something to worship, we all do. Which isn't true. You say that because some people believe in this omnipotent being and worship it, everyone must believe in something huge and worship something. That's like claiming that because some people believe in invisible faeries and feel the need for invisible faeries in their lives, other people who don't believe in invisible faeries must transpose their need for a "invisible fairy fix" onto something else even if they claim they're not. It's another tired iteration of "we killed God and worship Science/Ourselves instead". Fuck that right off. Next I expect you'll whip out that hoary old chestnut about "not beliving in God is an act of faith as much as believing in God is", if you haven't already. Now, I don't want to have to do your job for you, but there's actually far better argument in the "atheism=a form of worship and faith" vein when you're talking about nihilistic or post-modern rather than positivist/rationalist viewpoints. There's, arguably, a death-worship/will-to-self-annihilation aspect to the view of life as meaningless, an argument that people find comfort and solace in the thought of oblivion. That knocking down all pretensions as to humanity's "specialness", this collective ego-obliteration, is an act of worship in some primordial sense--worship of nothingness, worship of the void, blah blah blah. I'd still argue that there's no inherent need to worship and that even if there was, this is categorically different to arrogant forms of faith which think there's truth or knowability in the world... but it's certainly an argument. This view... it's not universe-worship or humanity-worship. You've got that wrong. Those things are the domain of much more positivist atheistic views, the domain of pure rationality, and those I should think they are a substantial minority in these heady post-modern days. I suspect the vast majority of modern western atheists would agree with the statement that "there's no perfect truth or objective reality in the world"... which would therefore imply a lack of belief in the perfectability of man and the knowability of the universe. And your ascribing of these two beliefs to all atheists is the crux of this argument. Remember, the genesis of this whole tangent was you calling atheism "arrogance" because it assumes this knowability, which Christianity doesn't:
Which is clearly absurd when you look at what I and many other atheists actually believe. Firstly, Christianity is arrogant in its own way. It ABSOLUTELY holds that humans are better than everything else around even if you throw in "Except for God". It DOES claim knowability, knowability through God. It's all about "take dominion" because it was all created for YOU even if we don't understand it. It's God's gift to YOU. How is that not an arrogant and egocentric view? Even if you make yourself subservient to an abstract outside agent, you're still constructing a heirarchy that puts you above everything else and assumes value and meaning for humanity. -------- Or, if I can sketch this thematically: | | HUMANKIND | | EVERYTHING ELSE Then you're ascribing to all atheists, simply the removal of God and leaving us with this: | | EVERYTHING ELSE You're still projecting essentially theistic constructs--"take dominion" and all that, onto people who lack the assurance that everything is a gift to them. Sure, there ARE positvists, Marxists, rationalists, etc, who see the universe as ultimately knowable, humanity as perfectable, but this is far from a required characteristic of absence of belief in God. Actually for me it's more like: With no particular heirarchy or true meaning or purpose anywhere in the mix. Just stumbling around in the dark searching for solace from the storm. I might even put awareness of our own mortality and isolation looming over everything, since mortality and isolation in our limited perceptions are the two essential but depressing facets of the human condition which cause most of these arguments. Disbelieving in constructed meanings-of-life such as "God thinks we're special" or, hell, "Humanity is perfectable" or "the universe is ultimately knowable" is not arrogance. You've presented a false dichotomy where disbelieving the first requires believing in the second and/or third. (edited by Arwon on 10-20-06 12:24 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| It's not just dominion over animals, though. It's a metaphor which implies essential ownership of everything, the centrality of man in the whole scheme of creation. It's observable that we've managed to put ourselves in a position where this planet cannot survive without us (if we all die tomorrow, nuclear reactors and nerve gas factories and other chemical production processes left unsupervised will probably destroy everything) but so what? Why is that special? For me, the key point is how badly we appear to be fucking up our assumed dominion. As I say, we shit where we eat and we're in the process of throughly mangling our only biosphere. We cannot escape the consequences of the fact that we're the same as everything else... the planet dies, we go with it. That ain't dominion. At best it's our hubris and idiocy and our isolated consciousness (making distinctions between "us" and "everything else") made manifest and concrete.
Fundamentally: The fact that dominion is the reality at present doesn't mean it's because of God or special destiny. The belief that it is special destiny to dominate the things around us, is an arrogant belief every bit as arrogant as the Marxist atheist thinking he can master nature (go wiki the Aral Sea to see what I'm talking about there). Moreover, we don't really have dominion, we ain't that special. We all were stardust, we all end up worm food. The fact that we've happened upon some consciousness and reasoning abilities in the interim doesn't necessarily imply that we have any great cosmic significance. At most, we have the pragmatic "there's nothing better elsewhere and there's no reason to hasten oblivion" impetus to try to make things better and more livable. Ah, here's we get all post-modern and relativist again. This is my truth, tell me yours, etcetera. Why don't I believe in God? Same reason I don't believe in Zeus or Shiva or faeries. It never really occured to me to do so, and no-one got me at a young and vulnerable age and put the ideas in my head. If one believes, based on his observations of the universe, that there is no ultimate truth, no meaning in life, then it kind of follows that God, as a prime example constructed truth and ultimate meaning, is false. It's not "proof against God" per se, lack of God (or Shiva) isn't central, merely a consequence.
Confucianism? Hell, most Chinese belief systems in general? And hey, moving forward in time, there's a billion atheists in China that tell me you're actually somewhat wrong on that score. Or don't Chinese people have souls? (Sorry, South Park joke). I'm not convinced that just because most tribes looked up at the sun and decided it was a god at some point, just because Abrahamic religions spread to millions of people through their well-organised power-structures and just because these Abrahamic adherents continue to dominate worldwide cultural discourse, that this is sufficient reason to think that there's some external reason most cultures have had gods. Belief in God perpetuates because that's the dominant cultural discourse, not because there's divine inspiration behind it. This would be true whether or not God actually existed. The notion of deities has always served an anthropoligical function. It's been a stand-in for the unknowable and a comfort during tragedies... sort of a god-of-the-gaps conception. Hence the worship of the sun in so many societies--the sun is important and scary. You still see it in the theistic appeals to the edge of our knowledge and undersanding and perception--people say "we don't know this this and this, therefore God". Although I will grant there's a competing conception of god-of-the-process ("God is everything" in animistic and karmic conceptions of the universe, or in the modern rational West--God is the hand manipulating chaos theory, God set the mathematics of the universe, etc) the God-of-the-Gaps remains dominant, at least in the west. The mere fact that there's so many competing, contradictory conceptions of dieties (ever have a theological conversation with a fundamentalist Hindu?) tells me that there's probably no external reason for them, no divine inspiration, it's just part of who we are to build such things. There is DISUNITY, not UNITY, in humankind's perceptions of matters of theism... if there WAS an external impetus and divine inspiration creating these beliefs, chances are they'd all agree on things beyond the fact that they all try to comfort fears of mortality and espouse common sense survival strategies such as the "do unto others" rule and "be nice damn you". Why is the lacking faith considered an "act of faith" in itself only when it comes to questions of God? Why is faith in something that has been so clearly constructed the default position? If you replace "God" with ANYTHING else, be it Ghosts, Faeries, Aliens, a huge government conspiracy to put fluride in the water, suddenly faith stops being the default position and people run the risk of being locked up if they espouse their views. AND, even then, if their coneption of God is held by too few people or is too wacky, they might get grabbed by anti-cult deprogrammers anyway. Why is God of special sanctity that people think you have to actively choose not to believe? As I say, a billion atheists in China never CHOSE not to believe... they simply never considered that they should be believing in God. Ultimately, the conviction that "Belief in God" is the default position and that disbelief implies conscious choice and act of faith, is a cultural construct. We could now beat each other over the head with the phrase BURDEN OF PROOF for the next ten posts because that's the impasse we've arrived at (And actually this whole burden of proof argument supports my post-modernist/nihilist/relativist view that there is no ultimate truth). Or you could acknowledge that Christianity is every bit as presumptuous and "arrogant" as atheism on the "we are the centre of the universe" front. You could acknowledge that there are massive distinctions between positivist and post-modern atheistic viewpoints and in many ways they are diametric opposites (for example, consider my abhorrence of the Marxist idea that nature can be mastered and harnessed scientifically), and that atheism does NOT connote any assumption of humanity's superiority or centrality to the universe, merely a lack of a belief in a God. And following from that, you could acknowledge that it's entirely possible to simply lack belief in a diety, without having to actually consciously choose to disbelieve it. (edited by Arwon on 10-20-06 01:43 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Didn't I just talk about Marxist materialism and the Aral Sea? People are largely scum whether they're religious or not. The shortsightedness, self-interest, self-centredness and limited perceptions of humankind (design flaws?) is what dooms us, not the fact that we think God or History tells us to take dominion over the environment.
This is all true. But a child raised in a theocentric environment is more likely to remain theistic in the future. You'd be far less likely to believe what you do if you grew up in Prague, which is in a contry where 85% of people have no religion and if you were raised in Sri Lanka chances are you'd be talking about enlightenment and Nirvana and so forth. At any rate, you asked why I don't and that's why. I was raised in an utterly agnostic though nominally Catholic household, and thus I basically defaulted through my own experiences towards the fairly nihilistic views I'm now espousing. I would repeat, though that atheism isn't really a central feature of my worldview any more than "not being Hindu" or "not believing in Mercantilism" is... it was never an active choice to disbelieve since I never believed in the first place. As I said, if one believes that there is essentially no ultimate truth, no final meaning in life, if one looks at everything in terms of cultural contexts and a limited sort of relativism... then it kind of follows that God, as a prime example of a cultural truth and a constructed ultimate meaning, is irrelevant and likely to be nonsense. It's not "proof against God" per se, lack of God (or Shiva) isn't central to it, but merely a consequence. Do you understand what I mean by "constructed" by the way? It's kind of a slippery po-mo term, unfortunately, but it's the most succinct way to exp |
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